M27, The Dumbbell Nebula, Reprocessed

I downloaded a new image processing app called Nebulosity, which offers more control for stacking, aligning and processing than Keith's Image Stacker. Mostly I was looking for a way to de-rotate an image stack. It's not a perfect program--the sequence of steps required is a little vague--but I'm happy with the early results.

Here's September's shot of M27 processed in KIS and Nebulosity.

Before:


After:

Looks Like His Momma

Mercury Transit

Well, that was underwhelming. It's a dot. Yup, still there. It's cool when you think about it, though.

Shot this with the NexImage through the ST80 and the Orion white-light filter. That's a big-a sunspot coming around on the right.

Sunset

Caught the sun going behind the house at the end of the block as I was setting up for tomorrow's Mercury transit.

Oklahoma (State) University

I'm glad I'm not an OSU fan. Never mind the sound drubbing they took from the Texas Longhorns, but you know the 30-second spots that run during college games where the school gets to say how great they are? During the game Saturday night, TBS ran one for UT, then one for OU. Right state, wrong school.

Birds

Dear Looser

(I shot this with the phone on my camera, which I haven't quite yet mastered, so excuse the crappy picture. The writing on the sign says, "If you want our troops to loose.")

Dear Looser,

First, thanks for making my job so much easier. It's folks like you who made me see that voting Democratic really isn't such a bad option.

Second, you might have noticed that things aren't going so great for our troops right now. October's been pretty tough, you know? So might it make a certain amount of sense to try something different? I mean, after your quarterback throws his fourth interception, you think about benching him. Or put it this way: If George Steinbrenner were President, do you suppose Rumsfeld would still have a job?

Your Democrat Pal,
Jeff

M33 Revised

Thhanks to Rammysherriff on Cloudy Nights for touching this up and turning me on to PixInsight.

M33, The Triangulum Galaxy

I still have many issues to resolve--guiding, alignment (there's field rotation going on here), gradient removal and so on. Let's just call this one a learning image.

I moved the focal reducer in front of the focuser, so my imaging train is scope, FR, WO crayford, adapter, camera. I like the wider field, but it's vignetting. Stretching the histogram to get the galaxy to show just makes it worse.

30 x 60 sec., LX200 10" @ f/6.3, Rebel 350D

Halloween

Halloween pictures are here.

Comet SWAN

30 x 30 sec, Digital Rebel XT, 10" LX200@ f/6.3. You can just see the tail going up & to the right. I could have used longer exposures, but I don't have a way to guide on the comet.

Dobsonion Rhapsody

I came across this little ditty on Cloudy Nights.
(Sorry about the cheesy midi file--it was the best I could find.)



Dobsonian Rhapsody

Is it a real scope?
Will it allow me to see
Celestial wonders
Like M33?

I'll look in the sky,
and give it a try to seeee.

I'm just a poor boy,
Can't afford quality,
It's easy come,
easy go,
Now I have
no cash flow

Any fit my wife throws
doesn't really matter to me....
To me.

Momma, Just bought a scope
Fed Ex just dropped it at my door,
I maxed my credit card for sure
Mama, the obsession's just begun
Soon I'll be havin' lots of fun
Mama, woo-ooo
I wasn't sure what to buy,
so I gave a dob a try
I'll give it first light this time tomorrow,
If it's clear, if it's clear, that's all that really matters....

It's twilight, the time has come,
to set the scope to cool
and use a collimation tool,
Goodbye everybody, I've got to see,
If skyclock indicates good transparency...

Mama, woo-ooo
No matter how I try,
I can't seem to see anything at all-

I see a little silhouette af a man
John Dobson! John Dobson!
Will you check my collimation!

Neighbour's back porch lighting
Very very fright'ning to me
Drives me crazy!!
Drives me crazy!
Light pollution bugs me so!

But I'm just a poor guy,
Playing a rich man's hobby
Staring a lot into a real cheap eyepiece!
Finding stuff sure is tough, can I use goto?

Starhop there! No! You cannot use goto!
Starhop there!! No! You cannot use goto!
We will not let you goto! Let me goto!
We will not let you goto! Let me gotto!
No,no,no,no,no,no,no

Mama Mia, mama mia! mama mia, let me use goto!
Cloudy Nights has a thread set aside for me, for me, for meeeee!

So you think with a starchart I can find anything
Like the Hercules Cluster and the nebulous ring!
Well, maybe, but I don't see a thing baby,
Guess I gotta get a Telrad, just gotta get a Telrad for me!

Nothing else matters,
But astronomy,
Nothing really matters, nothing really matters to me...

I shoulda wore warmer clothes......

Having a Blast in Phoenix

So here we are in Phoenix shooting a couple of videos for Corrosion Protection Products when they ask, "Who else want to give the sandblaster a try?"



File this one under "harder than it looks." The good news: there's a device on the air inlet for the helmet that cools the air about 20°, so it's pretty comfortable in there, except for the part where you can't turn your head to see, or hear anything with the earplugs in. The bad news: it's tedious. The blaster cleans a spot just a couple of inches wide. Imagine trying to paint the side of your house evenly with a can of spray paint and you get the idea. At least we were in the yard instead of a work site, where the pipe would have been in an excavated ditch.

M57 Reprocessed

Sharper and less noise.

M57, The Ring Nebula

The Ring will always be special to me--the very first DSO I ever found myself. This is only 12 x 30 seconds (low battery), guided. 10" LX200 Classic @ f/6.3, Rebel XT

Great Late Afternoon Light

Aristarchus Redux

A better view of Aristarchus and Vallis Schröteri. Better seeing, but I'm still not satisfied. I've got a couple of more processing tricks to try.

Aristarchus & Gassendi

I wasn't going to make any pictures last night, but I went out on the driveway about 10:30 and saw a clear, steady sky. I pulled out the little dob, looked at the moon and said, "I ought to shoot this."

Turns out the sky wasn't as steady as the small scope led me to believe--I'm guessing 3/5--so I'm a little disappointed in these.


Gassendi.



Aristarchus.

Freebirds World Burrito Rocks

I had a little freelance gig in Austin Friday, which was nice, but the best part about going into town is getting to go to Freebirds World Burrito for lunch. I got to the end of the line only to discover my wallet pocket was empty. The fellow working the register set my burrito to the side while I went out to the car to check there, but I already knew I had left my wallet at home. I came back in to ask if Trudy could call in a card number, or maybe I could pay online. Instead, he hands me the burrito, a cup for my drink, and tells me to come back when I can to take care of it.

Those guys rock!

Purple Haze

Or, Why Imaging M31, The Andomeda Galaxy, Through An 80mm Achromat With Pinched Optics Might Not Be Such A Great Idea




ST80, Canon Digital Rebel XT, 30 x 30 seconds.

I was able to successfully auto-guide the LX200 using the NexImage and Keith's AstroImager. I must not be quite accurately polar aligned though, as I still had some field rotation between images.

M27, The Dumbbell Nebula

Meade 10" LX200 Classic @ f/6.3, Canon Digital Rebel XT, 30 x 30 seconds unguided.

Stars are a little blobby--it's time to think about guiding. I'm pretty happy with this shot, though.

Thinking

I was talking with Andy yesterday when he suggested I buy not a telescope, but a telescope store. Apparently the woman who owns the store wants to spend more time with her family.

So I've been thinking about it. I have ideas on what I'd change and what I wouldn't. I've been wondering what it would be like to actually run the place, to be my own boss. I have doubts that I actually know enough about the products to do a good job selling. I worry that making a hobby a job would be the end of enjoying the hobby. And never mind the fear of going broke. It's the only astro store in own, but the internet is a powerful force.

I don't even know what I don't know: taxes, insurance, employees, liability. Could the store support my family?

I'll likely not get past this point, but I'll wonder "what if?" for a long time.

News Release

Heritage Park Observatory Receives New Telescope

Cedar Park, TX (Special)—The Heritage Park Observatory announced Monday the acquisition of their newest telescope, an achromatic 80-millimeter refractor. Commonly referred to as a "short tube 80" or ST80, this telescope increases the observatory's capabilities, according to Chief Astronomer Jeffrey Phillips.

"I'm excited about the new possibilities the ST80 brings to our facility," said Phillips. "We'll be able to observe sixteen times as much of the sky with this low-power, wide-field instrument. It's a great complement to the observatory's existing ten-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. Plus, the blue color is nearly an identical match to the LX200."

The ST80 has a focal ratio of f/5, with a focal length of 400 millimeters. It is attached to the LX200 with a "piggyback" rail and adjustable rings. The telescope was purchased from JAT Observatory in Fairless Hills, PA.

Along with the telescope, the observatory received its first significant rainfall in nearly seven weeks.

More Proof That Katherine Harris is a Whackaloon

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws."

The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.

I guess that a basic course in U.S. history isn't required to run for Congress.

<Edit> Apparently, I'm not alone.

Tom DeLay's Lawyers

Lawyers: Scrap the DeLay-related indictments
GOP operatives say state law is too confusing.
By Laylan Copelin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, August 22, 2006

The law that helped drive U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay from office and put two of his allies under criminal indictment can't be understood by the "man in the street," defense lawyers argued this morning.

Lawyers for Jim Ellis and John Colyandro, two DeLay lieutenants who operated Texans for a Republican Majority during the 2002 campaign, argued that the 3rd Court of Appeals should throw out indictments brought against their clients because the state's ban on corporate campaign money is confusing.

These are the guys I'm going to call when the IRS comes after me for not filing, because there's no way in hell the tax code can be understood by the "man in the street."

Widefield

That's the Trifid Nebula, M20, at the top, the Lagoon Nebula, M8, in the center, and a portion of the Milky Way, lower left.

12 x 30 seconds @ f/6.3 through the 100mm Canon macro lens, riding piggyback on top of the LX200.

The Trifid Nebula, M20

Same setup as M8, except 12 x 30 sec. exposures, and binned 4:1 in processing.

The Lagoon Nebula, M8

The Lagoon is one of my favorite summer objects. It's a nice combination of open cluster and diffuse nebula. Click for a larger image.



Shot from the Heritage Park Observatory. Meade 10" LX200, f/6.3 focal reducer, Canon Digital Rebel XT @ ISO 800. 24 x 30 seconds unguided. Levels stretched in Photoshop.

A little blobby, but I'm pretty happy with this unguided shot.

Pearls

I kind of miss working on the jewelry store account sometimes.

Cool Clouds

Click for a larger image.

First Day of School

Wow, was that a lot different than last year! We had to hold Ian back until the bus stopped and opened the doors for him to get on.


We went to the school open house last night, and when we went around the corner to Ian's classroom, he saw his teacher and went running up to her and gave her a big hug. I have high hopes for the year.

A Joke I Found on the Internet

A stupid question deserves an appropriate answer....

I was in Wal-Mart buying a large bag of Purina for my Golden Retriever and was in line to check out.

A woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting The Purina Diet again, although I probably shouldn't because I'd ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry & that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.

I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a tall guy behind her.

Horrified, she asked if I'd been poisoned and was that why I was in the hospital.

I said no..... I'd been sitting in the street licking my balls and a car hit me.

I thought the tall guy was going to have to be carried out the door.

Trouble Comes in Threes

I took the first week of July off from work with the hope of spending several nights in the observatory only to be thwarted by clouds. Fast-forward to the Sunday night before going back to work--I'm walking Buddy the Golden Retriever around the block when a pit bull comes out of his yard, crosses the street and bites Buddy twice, once on the back and once on the leg. The owner comes running and is trying to pull his dog off, I'm using unkind language about my intentions toward his dog, and finally get the pit off Buddy with a full-force kick to the side of his jaw, hard enough to lift him off the ground.

Buddy's recovered fine after a trip to the vet for stitches and antibiotics. CPPD and Animal Control paid the other guy a visit. I'm out $125 but am willing to walk away as long as I never see that animal again.

I'm jumping ahead, though. On the way home from work on Monday--it's already bad enough having to go back to work after a week off--I'm making a right turn at a traffic light. I'm stopped and looking over my left shoulder, and as soon as I look forward and start to go the car behind me rear-ends me. There's not much damage apparent, but we swap info anyway. I wait it out for APD, all the while angry that I'm now dealing with two police departments on two days. I HATE the culture of victimhood, and here I am, a victim twice over.

The other driver's insurance comes through, and I should have my own car back from the body shop any day now. That "little tap" is setting Farmer's Insurance back $800 plus a week of rental car.

At this point I was afraid to ask what else could go wrong. I really didn't want to find out, but alas. We started getting some outstanding nighttime weather, and I was in the observatory with the telescope, camera, new MacBook and a can of orange soda. Picture the scene: camera attached to the back of the scope, cable from camera to laptop curling around the soda can. Slew the telescope, cable pulls can over, soda spills, laptop dies. Jeff beats himself up for not acting on his original thought that maybe the soda might be better not sitting by the computer. Craptastic.

But, the extra $9 a month I pay on my homeowner's insurance for computer coverage came through. The hard drive in the Macbook was undamaged, so I was able to swap it right into a new machine. All is well.

So, that's my July. I've had worse, but it could have been better. In the end everything is pretty much as it started, so I can't really complain. But where would be the fun in that?

An Hour Of Jupiter

12 May 2006. One frame every five minutes. The moon is Europa.

Review: Eclipse Makview 4

I've been spending a lot of time doing planetary observation and photography, so when I got the chance to review an Eclipse Makview4 Maksutov-Cassegrain from AGENA AstroProducts, I jumped at it. Maks enjoy a reputation as excellent planetary scopes with their long focal length and performance approaching apochromatic refractors of the same aperture.





The Eclipse Makview 4 is a 105 mm, f/13 (1365 mm focal length) Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope featuring BK7 glass optics. The manufacturer claims a wavefront of 1/5 wave (corresponding to a surface accuracy of 1/10 wave) or better. Superficially, the scope resembles the well-known Meade ETX-series OTA with a plastic rear housing containing a built-in flip mirror and eyepiece holder.







The scope arrived nicely packed in an aluminum carrying case. Inside, the scope, finder and two eyepieces ride in custom-cut dense foam. That said, I did encounter a couple of issues. The lack of foam at the objective end makes this a carrying case and not a shipping case, since any shock can be transmitted to the tube. The other thing I noticed right away is that the finder must be removed from the mount, and the mount completely disassembled to fit the cutouts. That means re-aligning the finder from scratch every time you take the scope out. For me, that's enough hassle to make me want to skip the case, which is a shame. It looks like the foam is deep enough to re-engineer this, however.



With the scope out of the case, I proceeded to mount it to my equatorial mount by attaching a dovetail bar to the 3/8-16 and a 1/4-20 thread mounting socket. From there, I attached the 6x30 finder to its bracket, and then to the scope. The finder bracket uses two sets of three screws, which I find harder to adjust than the o-ring/spring-loaded pin system other manufacturers use. In addition, the metal mounting screws dinged up the finder scope while I was using it. To top things off, there's no way to adjust the focus on the cheap-feeling finder scope.



Before I ever inserted an eyepiece, I ran the focuser through its range. The movement was very smooth, and the large, rubber-gripped knob comfortable in my hand. Alongside the focuser at the rear of the scope is the lever controlling the internal flip-mirror and t-threaded eyepiece holder. There's a simple 1.25-inch plug in the rear, which leaves the t-threads exposed. I would have preferred a screw-on cap to protect them from the inevitable damage. The combination of the flip mirror and threaded connector is a nice touch, allowing you to easily switch between an attached camera and eyepiece.



Overall, the fit and finish of the telescope is fine. The coatings on the objective appeared smooth and even. The primary mirror was clean and appeared well-polished. My sample did have a small blemish in the paint on one side of the tube.



You don't buy a telescope to look at though, you buy a telescope to look through. I inserted the supplied 20-mm eyepiece and pointed the scope at Jupiter. Sadly, that's where I encountered the Makview 4's most glaring faults. The very first thing I saw when I put my eye to the eyepiece was an out of center donut, indicating that the optics of the scope were misaligned. The next thing that happened is that the donut moved from one side of the field of view to the other when I turned the focus knob. I own two other cassegrain telescopes--a Meade ETX-90 and a 10-inch LX200, and neither of them exhibit nearly the amount of mirror shift when focusing that the Eclipse unit does. I suspected the flip mirror might be contributing to the non-concentric diffraction rings I was seeing, so I bypassed it by attaching a 1.25" diagonal to the rear port, but saw a very similar pattern, leading me to believe the scope truly is out of collimation.



Despite the somewhat misaligned optics, the planetary views were pleasing. Using a 13-mm Nagler Type 6 eyepiece, Jupiter's equatorial belts and temperate zones were visible, along with a darkening at the poles. The Great Red Spot could be made out, but it didn't exhibit much redness. I wasn't able to make out Red Jr., but I didn't expect to, either. Saturn was getting pretty low by mid-May, but I could still view the two equatorial bands on the planet and the Cassini Division in the rings. The three-day old moon looked very nice, with lots of detail and contrast in the Nagler and a 22-mm Lanthanum Superwide. As for deep space objects, well, it is a four-inch telescope. The globular cluster M13 was unremarkable and unresolved in the small aperture from my moderately light-polluted suburban back yard.

The unit I reviewed included two generic Plössl eyepieces, but I'm not commenting on them as they are due to be replaced by higher-quality eyepieces.

I'm disappointed overall. I really wanted to like this telescope, but the out of collimation (and not easily adjusted) optics coupled with the large amount of mirror shift made viewing more difficult than it should be. While the views were nice, I couldn't help this nagging feeling that I wasn't seeing the best that the scope had to offer. I also found the US$375 OTA-only price a bit high for the overall quality, especially considering the competition's similar scope priced only $35 more including an EQ-2 mount.

Eclipse Makview 4, www.agenaastro.com

This review is also available as a PDF file.

Jupiter From the HPO

CSC says 4/5 seeing, but no way was it that good. Jupiter was swimming in the heat. I'm pretty happy with the finished shot, though. That's Red Jr. just above and to the right of the GRS. Ganymede is on the lower left, and Io on the right.

Darth Vader's Mounting Plate

The last piece of the observatory is finally ready to go.The mounting plate is back from the machine shop, and you won't see another one like it. Now to bolt it up and watch the rain!

HPO First Light Party

Thanks to my fellow Dam Astronomers for helping me christen the Heritage Park Observatory. My back yard looked like a used telescope lot!


L to R: Andy, Daniel, Dave, Ian, Me, Barry, Kathy & Ralph. And Buddy the Astro Dog.

Observatory Update

One Setback Encountered, Another Avoided

I got the mounting plate back from the machine shop, and boy, does it look sharp. I bolted it to the top of the pier with a little effort, and immediately discovered that the holes for the wedge attachment were drilled 15° off. I double-checked my drawing, and the part was machined wrong. It's OK, it's just a matter of drilling & tapping new holes--the old ones won't hurt anything. If there's an upside, it's that I found this before the plate went out for anodizing.

While I was trying the plate out, I thought, "Man, the wedge sure looks close to the roof." So this morning I set the tripod up alongside the pier, mounted everything up, and breathed a sigh of relief. It looks like I have about 1 1/2 inches (37 mm) to spare. It is tight, though, and I'm not quite sure what I'll do if I want to piggyback anything on the tube in the future.

What would I have done if the scope didn't clear the roof? Disassemble the shed, put down concrete pavers under the floor, and rebuild on top. I'm glad I don't have to deal with the money and labor now.

How To Build An Observatory in 5 Minutes (With Music)

It's a Shed!

It's a shed!

Observatory, Day Three

Day Three: There's a Hole In My Floor

Easier than digging a hole in the ground.

Observatory, Day Two

Level & north. Suppose Meade will sue me?

I'd rather mix concrete than dig holes.

Now the worry starts--did I mix right? Is everything well-compacted? Am I going to unwrap the tube and find huge voids?

Slide show here.

Observatory, Day One

My arms are killing me.

View a slide show of the first half of the pier installation here.